Colin Kaepernick's college coach to his pupil: 'Just awesome'

Few people were more excited to see what Colin Kaepernick did against the Green Bay Packers than Chris Ault, the former coach at the University of Nevada.

Ault, who stepped down following the 2012 season, developed the "pistol'' offense in which Kaepernick thrived at Nevada after not being heavily recruited as a high school player out of Turlock. His system of football will be carried on under new coach Brian Polian in 2013.

Ault, 66, shared his thoughts on Kaepernick, the pistol and the place the option football has in the NFL in phone interview Monday night:

Q: As the game was unfolding against the Packers, what was it like to watch? Did it look like what Colin did in college, only against the highest level of his profession?

Ault: I just enjoyed the heck out of watching the game and I kept thinking to myself, 'They're in pistol a lot, hopefully they'll run that read a few more times.' The things I was seeing were the things we'd seen here and looked like it would be a pretty good call. When they did it, it was exciting to see and of course exciting to see Kaep do his thing. The great thing about that read, as you well know, they give it to the (running) back more than the quarterback, and I don't know what those backs averaged, but I know it was pretty doggone good.

Q: How similar was the stuff the 49ers were running to what you ran for Kaepernick at Nevada?

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Ault: The read plays that they're running, that's what we ran. That's what we did and what we still do. The play-action passes, which I was really excited to see out of the pistol, are things that we did here in Kaep's senior year. The routes, I can't tell you the routes are the same, but I thought that was the one thing I had not seen the Niners do, that I saw the Redskins do, was throw the ball with play-action out of the pistol. I thought the play-action passing really helped with the read itself out of the pistol. It was fun to see, I'll tell you. I recognized most of it, and I'm sure they changed it to match their personnel, but it was fun to see the skeleton, anyway.

Q: Had Greg Roman or Jim Harbaugh reached out to you at any time since Colin has been there to pick your brain about him?

Ault: Not since he's been there. Greg came over, their last year at Stanford. Greg, and I want to say, two other coaches from Stanford came over. And they wanted to look at the pistol, what are you doing, what are you running, they just wanted to see what it is and what advantages there would be. They were with us a day, a day-and-a-half, it was a lot of fun. We exchanged films and it was good clinic talk. But I have not talked to Greg or Jim since Kaep's been with 'em.

Q: You do a lot of that, telling coaches about what you run and how you run it ?

Ault: You know what ... we've been very, very open about the pistol offense. Last year we had over 44 teams come to spring football. College, high school, JC, Canadian teams a couple of years ago. We've been very upfront in sharing some of the things we do with it and a lot of the coaches that come say, 'We can't run these particular things, but we run these and we'd like to see it.' There has been some nice exchanges, and it's grown so much, and at the collegiate level it's all over the country. And I enjoy watching all these other teams run it to see what they're doing. Everybody thinks the pistol is just a read, but the pistol is a formation. And from that formation, if you're a power offense, you can run the power. If you're a counter offense, you can run the counter. It's not just a read offense. I think the read offers another dimension to it, but it's really a versatile formation.

Q: How similar is what you did at Nevada to what Chip Kelly is doing at Oregon?

Ault: Chip and those guys, they have the back offset. He's not behind the quarterback. So their first base play is an outside zone play, a sweep-type action. Whereas our first base play is an inside zone and that sets up the read and the play-action pass off it. Really two different offenses, Chip's and ours.

Q: A lot of people lump them together simply because the quarterback runs a lot . .

Ault: Well, that part of it, those two things you could lump together. It's really basically where you're going to start your back, behind the quarterback or on the side. Oregon does it from the side and we do it from behind the quarterback.

Q: What was Colin like to coach?

Ault: You don't get many of those. He is probably one of the most unselfish, humble young men I've ever coached, and I've coached for a long time. He leads by the way he practices. His work ethic is just unreal. Just unreal. He set the tone -- and it didn't matter if you were an offensive player or a defensive player. When Kaep worked out, he set the tone for the way that workout was going to go.

Q: As you watch what Kaep did on the big stage, as well as what Robert Griffin III, Cam Newton are doing, do you think based on scouts you've talked to that the NFL evaluates quarterbacks differently than they did before?

Ault: You know, here's my thinking, and we've had a lot of scouts come through. Obviously the pure dropback guy, in the NFL's eyes, if he can throw it, he's going to get a lot of attention. But I think because of what's happening now -- the NFL's been a copycat league, as you well know -- and they haven't really diversified much through the years other than maybe a special formation now and then, with their passing game. But I think what the pistol is bringing to the table is there is something else out there. And you can do a lot of different things out of the pistol. But I think, in my personal opinion, what they're seeing out there, is these quarterbacks that can run in this day and age, they can also throw. It used to be, if you could run, then you couldn't throw very well, so you're not going to make it, you're going to go to defensive back. But these kids now, they're such good athletes and the offenses at the collegiate level, have become so diversified, they're more complex, and the guys are just that much better to go to that next level.

Q: Seems like common sense to take advantage of the athletic skills these quarterbacks have . . .

Ault: Absolutely. I'm not here to tell you that the 49ers should run the read 16, 17 times a game. You can't do that in the NFL. But I think by running the read play, it's in your offensive system and you're going to run it five times, nine times a game, it's one more thing you've got to defend. And then when you throw the play-action pass off it, that's another thing. So it's not just one dimension that you've got to look at, it's a couple of things. You see Kaep run that 56-yard touchdown, and you say, great, that's the read option. And it is great. But I think one of the things that set that up was a couple of the play-action passes out of the pistol.

Q: Atlanta saw to it that Russell Wilson did not carry the ball on the read option based on how they deployed their linebackers . . . Kapernick's running on the read option can be taken away, correct? And in so doing, do you relinquish the middle?

Ault: That's exactly right and that's what happened in college. They would load the outside and take Kaep away, and that's why it's the read. You give the ball off. We really designed our pistol offense, where we want the running back to carry the football. That is first and foremost in our thinking. But all of a sudden, you just fall asleep, just like Green Bay, you're handing it, and handing it and handing it, and he might've been able to pull it a couple of other times, but he waited until the right time. No question, they might just say, 'We're not going to let this Kaepernick run the ball.' And we had that in college. Then, it gives you an opportunity to run the read and the play-action pass.

Q: The 49ers did a little bit of this during the season, but they really waited until the right time to break it out, didn't they?

Ault: (Harbaugh) kept it in his hip pocket. He probably couldn't sleep at night he was so excited to get it going. What a great coaching job by those guys and the element of surprise, and the diamond they run, the two-back offense with the pistol, that was good stuff too. I just think, I always love to see the NFL become more innovative. In the past it's just been a copycat league.

Q: I noticed late in the game, with the game under control, Kaepernick could have gained more yards, and he slid instead . . .

Ault: You doggone right he did. I'm sure when Kaep ran that one play and he took on those two guys, I'm sure Coach Harbaugh had something to say to him. We taught him here, you get your yardage and when they're closing on you, get down. Get out of bounds. I've seen guys -- I mean, if you throw the ball 45 times in a game -- I've seen some of the most vicious hits on quarterbacks that you can see. We've never lost a quarterback running the pistol -- not one. We had one quarterback miss a game and a half and it was due to an injury we had at practice. You've got to use your head. Obviously you're not going to run Kaep like we did in college. But you tell him, use your head, if they're around you, you go down. You don't need to take anybody on. I hear these guys talking and stuff, about a 16-game season, well, sure, common sense is going to tell you, we want to hand this thing off most of the time. That's what the running back is going to do.

Q: Talked to Colin since the game?

Ault: We text. I don't want to bother him. Listen, I've never done that. I don't want to bother him and his concentration, and let those guys get his mind going towards Atlanta.

Q: Send him an congratulatory text?

Ault: Oh, yeah. I said, 'Just awesome, awesome.'

Q: His reply?

Ault: He usually replies right back. This time he didn't. He's probably got me on the list. Usually he just says, 'Thanks, coach.' He is that humble. He's not going to say, 'Yeah, I had a great game.'

Q: He's not particularly expansive with the media, zeroed into the team aspect, talking up teammates, his linemen . . . does he avoid being the center of attention?

Ault: You know what, believe me, in the five years we had him here, a lot of that is about being a quarterback, but he is a very humble and unselfish young guy. That's the way he was here. He would rush for 240 yards or something like that and you would think he rushed for 50. That's just him and he's a team guy all the way. Always has been.